Tablet.



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

LOUIS SPENCER LEVY, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

Patented Nov. 14, 1916.

TABLET.

1,204,793, Specification of Letters Patent.

No Drawing. Application filed February 16, 1916. Serial No. 78,582.

T 0 all whom it may concern Be it known that I, LoUIs SPENCER LEVY, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of the borough of Manhattan, in the city, county and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Tablets, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to tablets and refers particularly to medicinal preparations intended for external use only.

One object of my invention is a tablet the construction of which will practically prevent the swallowing of the same.

Another object of my invention is a tablet of an elongated shape, and of such a length that it is practically imposible to insert it into the throat through the ordinary process of swallowing.

Another object of my invention is a tablet in which the size or shape in conjunction with its odor or taste will warn the person attemping to swallow it of its unusual character.

Another object of my invention is a tablet of such a size and shape as to practically These and other objects will be apparent upon a consideration of my specification and claims.

There are many valuable medicinal and pharmaceutical preparations intended only for external use, such as antiseptics, germicides, etc., which are extremely dangerous or fatal when taken internally, either by accident or design, and numerous methods have been suggested as warnings of the dangerous properties of the ingredients. These suggestions have taken the form of peculiar shaped bottles, or in the instances in which the chemicals are presented in solid form, colored and peculiar shaped tablets have been proposed. That these proposed warnings are of little or no value, is evident when consideration is given the fact that harmless medicines intended for internal use, are sold in bottles of fanciful shapes and are of themselves colored and of various odd and uncommon forms. Hence, the shape and color of the medicinal compound, or the shape or form of its container, carries no warning to even the careful and well-informed person and is an attraction, rather than a restraint, to their internal use by children. As the dangerous properties of chemicals of this class are exhibited only after they are swallowed, it is evident that the only successful preventive of this undesired result is some method whereby the swallowing of the chemicals is rendered impossible, and my invention relates to a process of practically accomplishing this result.

The human throat is so constructed that it is possible of some expansion in the process of swallowing and hence is capable of allowing the passage of ordinary pills and tablets of considerable size without material inconvenience, due not only to this property of the throat but also to the form or shape of such pills and tablets, which adapt themselves with ease to the process.

Attempts have been made to produce tablets incapable or extremely difficult of being swallowed, by incorporating foreign objects that will stick in the throat, but these are diflicult to manufacture and are expensive, and the foreign object is objectionable in the ordinary or prescribed use of the tablet. I have approached the problem in a scientific and systematic manner, and my conception, that elongated or rod-like tablets of a proper length would be practically impossible to swallow, whether the elongated tablet was either in line with or transverse to the line of the throat, has been proven by my experiments.

The difficulty experienced in swallowing my device rests not alone in the inability of the throat to allow of its passage, but upon a number of other qualities it possesses, among which are the difficulty experienced by the tongue in carrying it to the throat and the difliculty in moistening it with saliva. This difiiculty of swallowing is not only a valuable property as a preventive to the internal introduction of the tablet, but is a decided and effective warning of the unusual character of the chemicals, due to the shape within the mouth, the swallowing of it thus being deterred through the sense of feeling.

My device is particularly valuable in those cases where the tablet is to be dissolved for external use, as its shape allows of its ready and exact division into fractional parts, where smaller solutions are desired or Where the strength of the solution is to be varied from the usual standard, and, in addition, on account of its shape, it exposes a greater surface area for the amount of its contents than any of the present employed tablets, thus causing a more thorough solution with greater rapidity, properties which are of extreme importance in tablets of this character.

My device also has great value when the remedial chemicals employed are combined or mixed with ingredients, such as essential oils pr other substances possessing disagreeable odors or tastes, or both, as deterrents to internal use, as the increased surface area allows these ingredients to be more rapidly liberated because of this greater exposed area.

My device has the additional advantage of allowing the incorporation of other soluble compounds to the poisonous chemicals in order to increase the bulk or size of the tab-' let, such additional compounds being neutral, or of a medicinal character as emetics, or of use simply as binders, or aids to solubility.

My device therefore becomes an unmanageable and repulsive object within the mouth, practically incapable of being swallowed.

It is to be noted that my device possesses not only these unique and valuable properties, but also possesses the deterrent properties of the present known tablets, in that its shape and size are suggestive, it can be colored any desired shade, and can be incased in any particular character of container.

As an example of my invention, I make a tablet composed of bichlorid of mercury, and such other ingredients as may be desired, by compressing and forming the mixture of materials into a tablet of approximately cylindrical or rod-like form of about one and one-quarter inches in length and onequarter of an inch in diameter, this length having been found to be efi'ective as a substantial preventive of swallowing the same.

It is of course evident that the tablet may be square, triangular, elliptical, or of any other shape in cross-section, and of a length and diameter at variance with that given in the example, without going beyond the scope of my invention, which is a tablet intended for external use of such an elongated shape that it is practically impossible to swallow it. a

What is claimed, is:

1. As a new article of manufacture, an elongated tablet containing bichlorid of mercury, compressed or molded into a rodlike shape, having a diameter of approximately one-quarter inch and a longest dimension of approximately one and onequarter inches, to practically prevent the swallowing thereof on account of the cansation of pharyngeal spasm.

2. As a new article of manufacture, an elongated tablet containing bichlorid of mercury, compressed or molded into. an angular rod-like shape, having a diameter of approximately one-quarter inch and a longest dimension of approximately one and one-quarter inches, to practically prevent the swallowing thereof on account of the causation of pharyngeal spasm.

Signed at New York city, in the county of New York and State of New York this 15th day of February, 1916.

LOUIS SPENCER LEVY.

Witnesses:

G. H. RAYMOND, TERESA V. LYNCH. 

